Yeah I think both of those plots will over time succumb to pure auto-centric strip style development because anything else I think would find the peculiarities of the site layout too challenging....


Maybe I am missing the boat on this and I just don't get it but I really think this intersection design condemns that intersection to autocentric hell for all eternity

^you and me both....

^ Ultimately, this project is still a ways from happening.

And with the city getting a brand new head of DOT who is more bike and transit-minded, there is always the possibility for new changes to the plan.

Lawfin, please propose another alternative that you think works better for this intersection.

As a resident of this neighborhood--I don't know why any suburbanite would chose to go down here--I would like to be able to drive through it and not sit in traffic for a half hour.

Steve thanks for the pics and the recap of the meeting on your website, from one MUPP to another.

Umm…based on the first article posted here about this intersection, this was designed more with truck traffic in mind:

Although I have to admit that I’m not familiar with the area (I’ve only passed through via car or bus)—while according to streetview there’s some fairly dense residential tucked into the nearby streets, as a whole it strikes me as fairly industrial. I’d think truck traffic would be fairly heavy around and through this part of town, and it makes sense to plan with them in mind.

I think the Kennedy kind of doomed the neighborhood to that. As for the intersection itself, I don’t see how an overpass or underpass would have been better. And as a pedestrian, I generally find four-way intersections more palatable than six-way ones.

I am not a civil engineer; nor a traffic engineer. So get off your high horse that a proposal cannot be criticized by implying that I have to have a better alternative. That is why we have professions; if they are talented designers as well as competent technicians they should be able to do better...especially with the second order downstream impacts of their design.

It just seems to me as an urban enthusiast, who appreciates Chicago for what it has left of pre-auto urbanity that this proposal is just one more nail in the coffin of urban chicago and one more flag raised to the auto.


Perhaps if you don't like sitting in traffic you should do something about that and get out of your car; as that is far more in your power than me proposing an alternative to CDOT for this proposal....what an asinine suggestion....


Wicker park has some of the best transit access in the city between the blue line / metra / buses.....my proposal is for you to get out of your car or quit your bitching about sitting in traffic since you are part of the problem

I don't think he is bitching or speaking down to you lawfin, I think he's just legitimately wondering if you have a better idea. Since when is anyone on this site qualified to speak about 75% of the things they comment on? Hell, maybe 10% of us are architects, yet we all feel entitled to suggest our favorite changes to every design we see.

Also, this is hardly part of Wicker Park. This isn't even technically a neighborhood, it's generally considered the "Elston Industrial Corridor" and will probably never be a pedestrian friendly place since large swaths of it are designated to remain industrial for eternity by the city. Remember that Milwaukee and Damen is approximately 1.5 miles Southwest of here. So unless you consider a 1.5 mile walk to the EL and a 1/2 mile walk to the Metra to be "well connected" to transit, the area is really a transit desert.

I suggested proposing an alternative as a means of correcting, rather than just criticizing, what you find to be an abhorrent solution to a poorly designed intersection. There already enough opinions on internet, why add another.

Its clear to me that your issue lies with the nature of automobile use itself, rather than the actual design proposal for the intersection. For that I don't know what to say. People drive cars, and they don't like to sit in traffic. When you can fix that problem its usually a good thing. Good urban design and automobile use need not be mutually exclusive.

As for your issue with my personal transportation choices. I'd just like to point out that I commute everyday to work by train. When the weather is nice I will ride my bike. As for commuting within my neighborhood I will walk or ride my bike. But every now and then when I need to buy some larger items at the Home Depot or buy a bunch of groceries at Strak and Van Til on Elston the bus just ain't gonna cut it.

Finally I'll assert that you don't need a civil engineering degree or masters in urban planning to propose or even shape the design of cities and even roadway intersections. The proposal for this intersection was just presented to the public last week. Members of CDOT, and the 32nd Ward's Alderman Scott Waguespack, were in attendance to hear the views of neighborhood residents. Design alternatives are frequently floated before the public to elicit feedback as part of the planning process. After all public support is needed for large scale public works projects. If you have ideas or solutions in mind they could be included or at least considered.

Yeah I had bucktown in my head when I typed wicker park; when I am in that neighborhood ...bucktown / wicker park...I am almost always down there via either bike or transit...The metra really isn't too bad of a walk over to Damen.

I guess when I am flying up Damen on my bike from North / Milw fullerton doesn't seem like a mile. Probably because the scenery is usually interesting.

Exactly what this proposal will not sustain

anyhow maybe I took it the wrong way...it seemed kind of snide...and I am in kind of a prickly mood

Sorry if i took you the wrong way

really you must be incredibly perspicacious to be able to discern that about me from an online post regarding a singular traffic proposal.

Perhaps....though it is quite a difficult nut to crack to serve the different underlying priorities of the human scale and the auto scale. They may not need be mutually exclusive but they almost always are as in the case of this proposal.

Eh, its the internet, misunderstandings happen every day. But am I wrong about the hating cars? I mean "autocentric hell" doesn't elicit a lot of positive connotations. :)

I think if you bike through that intersection the changes might make it easier. I'd be nervous with people making left turns there because its such a mess--just like the Chicago, Ogden, Milwaukee intersection, yikes!

If there really is no room for dedicated lanes through the intersection on Damen, then CDOT should put in some "sharrows" (shared-lane markings) and a few bike boxes at each intersection to give cyclists a dedicated place to wait for the light. This wouldn't take any space in the Damen cross-section but would still provide a measure of accommodation for cyclists. We'll see what Gabe Klein can whip up.

Really, really cheesy Bike Box video

I assume you are being sarcastic. For a driver unfamiliar with the configuration, Lincoln Ave there is confusing. Someone coming from the south and looking for, say, 4750 North Lincoln, could lose 20 minutes easily before figuring out it requires a left, a right, a right, and a right, each with traffic lights and/or bus stops, etc., rather than just continuing straight. Not to mention someone looking for 4950 and missing the jog back onto the diagonal street. And I would say Damen/Elston/Fullerton, compared with Lincoln Square, has tons more drivers who are unfamiliar with the D/E/F (who are just passing through to/from the Kennedy for example), in part because it's just another non-descript industrial corridor intersection without landmarks memorable to the average person (people mix up Elston and Clybourn enough as it is).

The signage at Lincoln is very poorly conceived; Lincoln detours onto Leland and Ainslie. Those streets should be renamed to Lincoln for the one-block stretch that Lincoln detours onto them.

Maintaining continuity for Lincoln is more important than preserving the addresses on the bypassed stub; in Lincoln Square, the stub should literally be named "Lincoln Square". It's the most sensible choice.

Come to think of it, Elston Square would also be a nice designation, and it would help to create an identity for that currently forgettable area around D/E/F.

...surprised nobody posted this
 

Chicago-St. Louis fast train gets $186 mil. of Florida funds
By: Paul Merrion May 04, 2011

(Crain's) — Florida’s loss is Illinois’ gain, as the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded an additional $186 million Wednesday to the Chicago-St. Louis high-speed rail project.

Metra UP-N Retaining Wall Scaping

Before:
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/7643/rw1i.jpg

After (chain-link added, vines planted)
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6704/rw2yq.jpg

Whether or not St Louis HSR is going to change anyone's life here, Chicago has for over a century been the country's leader in rail, and any opportunity to leap ahead a couple decades and get the HSR ball rolling in the Chicago area will be a great foundation for the future. For example, it will put HSR in the lingo and experience of the average citizen/taxpayer/voter (from anyone regularly walking through Union Station, to people in greater Joliet and the general metro area, to IL and hopefully WI and IN and MI taxpayers/voters), thereby laying the seeds for support and growth for some future phase. And then, when it comes time to discuss adding a 2nd line (say, Madison, hopefully, finally), the 2nd line will already come with the added benefit of quick onwards connections towards Springfield/St Louis. It just gets exponentially better from there.

I prefer the before?

^ Yeah, the after looks cheap.

What the hell?

Yeah thirded! That after pic looks horrible! Is it possible the pics were mis-tagged.....hopefully?

If I lived across from that, I'd be PISSED if they did that to my view. Nice leafy green, if somewhat overgrown, to no trees and chain link like some prison. The onyl benefit I can see to the "after" is that tree roots may be disruptive to the embankment - but there must be some sort of happy medium.

The trees have to go to make room for the track. The new northbound track will be so close to the western edge of the right-of-way that a new, taller retaining wall is required. If a third track is ever built, it will do the same thing to the eastern edge of the embankment (although not as severe).

UP insists that the track spacing needs to increase from 13' to 15'. Also, for reasons of construction staging, the new tracks have to be a few feet to the west of the existing ones. These two factors in combination mean that the edge of the train's clearance envelope will only be 4'9" away from the street on the west side. This requires the permanent removal of all the vegetation on this side (hence the feeble attempt at vines).

http://metrarail.com/content/dam/met...pril2011UP.pdf

I believe the Urbanophile does in fact live across the street from that, or at least within a block of the rail line somewhere. I'm interested to hear his take, since he was such a critic of the original plan.

What you don't like Jurassic Park style 10' chain link fence?

LOL

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cHtQrCxWVW...assic-park.jpg http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6704/rw2yq.jpg

Although these particular improvements are happening in Michigan, it's definitely Chicago related, boosting speeds (though only slightly) between Chicago and Detroit.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011050...text|FRONTPAGE

Waits for TRex to emerge over the top of Metra tracks...

A Tribune article on the fencing around the tracks:

^^^ That's rich. Well done, I was like "wait, did the tribune turn into the Onion and then pick up on this thread?" for a second there...

This reminds me of how they temporarily moved the raptor cages to Millennium Park as one of the main features of the park right at the beginning. They just took them down after they realized that the clever girls were picking off a dozen or so tourists a year.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/...b2f5cb184d.jpg
flickr

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_3xmWZKdcRVE/TK...h30m09s215.JPG
ggpht.com

Cool. We need these across the city. If the CTA has an option for 2050 signs, that's pretty much every shelter IN the city. 160 is a good start.

It was fun reading through the comment section where some were saying that this is a huge waste of money since everyone can see this on their iphones already.. :rolleyes:

What they ought to do for the Train Tracker signs in the stations is figure out a way to keep them visible.

90% of the time I can't see them on the platform because other signs (or lighting figures) are blocking them.

I'd rather that the signs display only train arrival times. I don't need reminders to replace my Chicago Card... I was at Cermak yesterday and had to wait through nearly a minute of useless bullshit messages before it got to the arrival times. Also... I don't need arrival times for northbound trains on a sign facing the southbound half of the platform.

Really, the signs installed at Belmont and Fullerton need to be installed systemwide. The one-line signs that already exist, and the LCD screens that display commercials, both suck at showing arrival times.

I agree!! It seems I can NEVER see the signs at Fullerton or Belmont unless I'm standing in just the right spot. Otherwise the structure and lights are always blocking all the times.

I also hate that 2/3 of the time it's showing crap thanking us for riding, crap about chicago cards and then what day it is.

I actually contacted the CTA to let them know that one of the signs at Fullerton has been frozen on the Chicago Card message for a few months now.

The signs have a valid purpose in communicating disruptions and temporary service changes. People check the boards to get an idea of how long they have to wait, so if some knucklehead fell on the tracks 3 stations down, it's gonna increase your wait time and the message is relevant.

Making those messages electronic saves the CTA the cost of replicating hundreds or thousands of paper signs, and saves the union-wage salaries of the dudes who post the paper signs.

I'm guessing CTA will tweak the messaging strategy as they go along to better utilize the signs that have been installed. However, I'm worried that with Train Tracker in place, CTA won't bother to expand the electronic signage. Anybody without a smartphone will remain in the dark, or will have to use a slow and cumbersome texting service.

Hey Viva, what happened to the rollout of the LCD ad/message screens from Titan? I heard they were having problems with the screens overheating, but that was months ago. Will the installation continue?

Asbury seems like the best choice to me. It has dense residential neighborhoods surrounding it, and CTA could extend the busy 49B bus to a new turnaround at the station (or at a convenient location further north). The station could be built with an auxiliary entrance to Ridge as well to serve St. Joseph St. Francis Hospital.

i take it you meant to say St. Francis Hospital? St. Joseph is down in lakeview.

and i agree that a station at asbury with access ramp to ridge would make the most sense and serve the greatest number if there's only to be one yellow line station in south evanston.

a station at dodge would also have merits, including providing rail access for seniors to the levy center, but asbury/ridge has much higher residential/employment density.

in an ideal world, you put in stops at asbury/ridge, dodge, crawford, oakton, & main, along with extending the line up to old orchard, and turn it into a full-fledged rail corridor, but ridership probably isn't there to support all of that.

A preliminary study can be found here (pdf). It includes a table of their ridership estimates:

Dodge: 250 (low) 950 (high)

Asbury: 400 (low) 850 (high)

Ridge: 500 (low) 1000 (high)

Two separate stations at Dodge and Ridge in south Evanston plus another in Crawford sounds best to me—if Evanston only wants to have one station in the long term, then Asbury makes the most sense. Asbury also has the advantage of having the easiest track geometry for building new platforms. Ridge carries the caveat that there isn’t much room to accelerate between it and Howard and could potential put a dent in the Yellow Line’s high average speed (a major sticking point for Skokie); I’d also expect some of Ridge’s ridership to be poached from Howard.

What's the latest estimate for opening day at Oakton?

Not a huge problem, since the Yellow Line often has to wait for clearance anyway before getting a berth at Howard.

Still, I'd like to see a Metra station at Howard in the long run. It would really simplify the rail transit system on the north lakefront, even if people had to walk the 2 blocks for the transfer from Metra to Red.

The groundbreaking was last summer, but construction did not actually begin until October. At that point, completion was anticipated for "late fall 2011". I believe the foundation is well underway by now, and they will probably try to open the station before everything is fully completed in order to meet the deadline in the contract.

Construction Updates, April 11 2011

(see the skyline in the background)
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6959/oakton1.jpg

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/6792/oakton2.jpg

I note that the high ridership estimates are IF the line went direct to downtown Chicago.

Couldn't CTA extend the red line to Skokie pretty easily? Ten million or so to extend the existing platforms? Add maybe 20 more cars onto their next rolling stock order? They probably wouldn't want to run every train out to Skokie; every other train, or every third train, might be more appropriate.

That, plus a station at Asbury, and another one at Crawford, would IMO complete the line. The convenience of riding direct to downtown would probably more than offset the slower speeds from Skokie's perspective.

^^^ It would more than offset the slower speeds simply by eliminating the transfer time. I know it might be difficult to do that not only because of the platform size, but also because the Skokie tracks dead end and there is no staging area. This could lead to "bunching" in the system if just one train runs behind. If they could make it work, every third train to Skokie would be great esp if they ever extend it to Old Orchard.

The Yellow Line extension is dead meat since Skokie residents said they don't want it or any further future service on old North Shore ROW. Any proposal to realign the Yellow Line as part of the Red Line would definitely meet strenuous opposition amongst the local NIMBYs and would doom the project.

The CTA should not be wasting it's time and money trying to give people something they don't want.

THANK YOU!!!! I was just about to complain about this. Though I'll still probably forget to replace my Chicago Card anyway.....

Good to see a few photos of the station construction! I'd been wondering about it a few weeks ago. Nice to get an idea of where they're at in the construction process.

Ike EXPWY
 

Tribune story
By Jon Hilkevitch, TRIBUNE REPORTER
6:38 p.m. CDT, May 17, 2011


IDOT is evaluating the Ike again. Eisenhower Xpwy Redo

..."The possible solutions being examined include widening the Eisenhower to four lanes in each direction for the entire length of the highway. The expansion would make room for "managed lanes'' handling car-poolers, express buses or drivers willing to pay tolls to commute more quickly during rush hours, according to IDOT planners.

But so far, money is available only for the ongoing review of ideas. "Part of our analysis is to examine the financing options,'' said Pete Harmet, IDOT bureau chief of programming for the Chicago region. "We are a ways away from construction."

An expansion of the CTA's Blue Line rail service, from its current terminus in Forest Park to DuPage County, and other new transit services are among the possibilities, officials said. They include a proposed light-rail line and a designated bus-rapid transit corridor that would be open to express buses traveling between the suburbs and downtown at least part of the day.

Improvements at existing Blue Line stations are in the plans, too, to improve transit connections for commuters who drive, bike or walk during part of their trips, officials said.

One of the 170 suggestions received involves making the CTA Blue Line station at Harlem Avenue easier for pedestrians to use, officials said. A better design involving the CTA bus stop at Harlem is being examined. Buses currently stop in an active traffic lane on Harlem, leading to conflicts between drivers and pedestrians.

On the expressway, up to three general-use lanes in each direction would be maintained, officials said. IDOT is working with the Illinois Tollway to develop concepts for possible toll lanes that would be priced with a sliding scale of fees based on the time of day and traffic loads, the officials added."

Why is the Pink Line never involved in these discussions? Extending the Pink to Loyola/VA - Maywood Campus and even into Westchester should be considered.

Not quite—since they were using comparisons with existing Chicago-area stations to make their estmates, all ridership estimates were dropped down forty percent to account for the need for a transfer. From the report:

So the numbers I posted on the last page would all be higher if the Yellow Line ran downtown. I think the main reason it doesn’t is an equipment utilization issue—no sense running eight cars all the way up to Oakton and Dempster (especially since the Red Line seems to run eight-car trains off-peak as well). In addition lengthening Dempster and spending more on the infill stops, you’d probably have to renovate Oakton Station—even though the station itself is long, the only elevation I’ve been able to find shows a platform that only looks capable of berthing four-car trains at the moment (those pylons may be a limiting factor in the long-term, too—from Patrick Pryor of McDonough Associates):

http://pryorcraftsmen.com/wp-content...over-Sheet.jpg

I’m not sure if there would be NIMBY issues with through-routing (one-seat ride via transit might trump any concerns, and I’d expect Skokie transit users to be familiar with how easy it is to transfer anyway), but k1052’s right—the Yellow Line extension’s fairly dead at this point. The community hates it (for your typical suburban reasons, plus the added hilarity of them thinking it will serve as paddy wagon for pedophiles to the Cook County court) and CMAP doesn’t care for it much either (it has the highest cost per passenger of the three CTA extension projects in the works, and doesn’t solve any pressing capacity issue like the Orange and Red Line extensions do).

Skokie seems weirdly bipolar about transit, though—on the one hand they pay for a new station at Oakton on their own and plan to concentrate development in the Oakton and Old Orchard areas, but on the other they’re completely against a Yellow Line extension on your typical suburban NIMBY grounds (cost didn’t seem to be a huge factor in the Yellow Line opposition).

I dunno if it's bipolar about transit exactly. Many Skokie residents support the revitalization of downtown, and the new Oakton station is part of that. (Speaking of which, Skokie just put Oakton on a trial-period road diet)

I think the north Skokie residents against the project might actually be okay with an at-grade option or a subway, but neither of those really work for CTA obviously.

New Morgan Street Station

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/05/...union-station/

Architect Wants To Expand Union Station
May 30, 2011 10:30 AM

...Wolf said that his proposal would create six new through tracks for high-speed trains, while retaining ample space for Metra and existing Amtrak service.

He said he has not consulted either with Amtrak, which owns Union Station, or Metra, which is its biggest tenant. He estimates the cost of his proposal in the range of $700 million. But he said everyday service would be able to continue uninterrupted through the demolition and construction phases.

A new, semi-enclosed concourse area would take the office tower’s place, with escalators descending to track level. Clearance would be left to accommodate electrification of commuter and intercity trains.